Riley and Avery

So, the girl who made an ill-advised attempt at beating Riley up last summer is now Riley's best friend. Seems that the girl's parents were fighting a lot last summer, and that on top of a military move...She seems to be a pretty good friend to Riley this summer, so I hope it continues. One little girl told a lie about Riley (that Riley grabbed her by the shirt and threw her on the ground, totally untrue) and Paige has been the only kid to stick up for Riley. Kids are so strange!

And because I couldn't find a relevant picture, here are pictures of Lola after burrowing in Rudi's sweatshirt and getting stuck in the arm: (she was quite embarrassed!)



And a PSA about dogs: We live in a very dog-filled neighborhood. I would say that seriously half of the homes have at least one dog. There are over 80 units here, so let's just say 40 dogs. Heck, let's just low-ball it and say 30. Of those, only TWO, Gemini and Lola, get their recommended allowance of daily walks. About a handful get one walk every day, two to four dogs to be exact. The others are never seen and are never walked. How said is that? A couple dogs are tethered outside on a 5ft lead. Some are restricted to the back porch, including some really really large dogs (think malamutes and great danes). Others appear to live in the garage, as the door will be cracked just a couple inches and the way Lola sniffs the door, leads me to believe that a dog lives mainly in the garages. Why get a dog if you can't care for it properly? In very horrible terrible no-good weather, dead of winter, or in the down-pours of spring, Lola still gets AT LEAST 3-4 walks a day. In fabulous weather, she gets 6-8 walks a day (and I mean WALKS, not just let out front), especially if she hears her BFF Gemini outside and even though she doesn't have to "go" she wants to socialize. At least two of the walks will be longer than 30 minutes, the others around 10-15 if it's already dark or bad weather. Sure, maybe I over-do it, but dogs need to be out more than once a day, right? I mean, where do these dogs poop who are NEVER taken for walks or even let outside? Do they just let them poop on the back porch and then they pick up the poop? Or do they poop in the garage? That's just nasty!

A post from Tuesday that is really old, so I'm letting it go...


I had Riley's conference today. She's obviously doing well. Nothing that I didn't really know, except what Rae was saying (coupled with reading my first-ever parenting book "Raising Your Spirited Child") made me realize just how similar Riley and I are. Perhaps that's why we butt heads so much. Not really a surprise, is it?

She is well into the first grade curriculum for reading, closer to second grade. She really can read everything and anything. She is finally using context clues to figure out words she doesn't know. The only problem she has is not picking books that are challenging enough. She gets too comfortable.

Riley's math is interesting. She has my issues. Our long-term memory is detailed and infinite, but short-term memory is lacking. I have never been able to memorize things. I still don't know what 8 x 7 is without really thinking about it. I have to do (8 x 3) + (8 x 4) even today! How lame is that? Rae said that she appears so used to absorbing information without effort, that the memorization involved in math is not easy for her. This is my same issue. I enjoy math, and I am even marginally good at it, but if I don't understand it, I will never get it. I do algebra and geometry often in everyday life, but it's concrete for me. Calculus? Most college professors (and I should know, I had FOUR college calculus professors!!) can't adequately explain those ideas, so I have no hope of permanently learning them. None!

We've renewed our pursuit of Singapore math. I had to buy the second grade curriculum because the first grade wasn't difficult enough. I can't even express how much it helps that Riley can now read the directions for the activities herself! We are still going through the first grade curriculum, just for continuity, but she's doing 10-15 activities at a sitting and stops only after I make her. It's also totally freaking awesome that I can buy the Singapore math stuff at Borders, with a coupon. Not like it's expensive in the first place, but every little thing helps, right? Singapore math is actually quite similar to Montessori math, so it's not foreign to Riley at all.

We were supposed to go to the zoo for Mother's Day, but I hadn't been feeling all that well for several days, so we headed to the park for a few hours instead. Rudi had bought the girls some kites that didn't really hold up well at all, but Riley had fun trying really hard to get it to fly. Avery's kite tore within a minute, but luckily she was diverted by the huge field of dandelions. Tree-climbing was the activity of the day, both Riley and Avery climbing pretty high. Avery, for being such a girly-girl, sure likes climbing trees!

So, I bought a crock pot. For a whopping 15 bucks ;) It has been awesome! Rudi had fallen into the habit of taking the girls out to eat 2 days a week when I'm in school, and that's just not good for anyone, our budget included. Everything I've made in it has turned out fabulously. Which brings me to another point...

I see absolutely no validity in the argument that working moms can't make their families nutritious meals, or that fast food is cheaper. It is not cheaper. No way. Just the other day I bought a pork roast for $5, threw in about a pound of potatoes (what's that? Like $1 worth of potatoes?) and a dollar worth of carrots. We had it for dinner twice, so that comes out to about $3.50 per dinner. On RARE occassions that we've eaten fast food it has always come to about $15. Even if had each gotten two things from the dollar menu, it would have been $8. Still not cheaper.

If I can prep the crock pot in the morning (and I am NOT a morning person!) then anyone can. Some recipes have called for more prep than others, like browning ground beef, but still no more than 10 minutes worth of prep, if that. There is no reason why a parent can't prep the pot and have her children turn the pot off and eat when they get home from school, rather than leaving money for fast food.

Tomorrow, we are planning on going to the zoo for Mother's Day. I will prep the pot in the morning, and we'll come home to a nice dinner. It's almost like not having to cook on Mother's Day. Can't beat that!

So, what have I made so far? Let see...beef stew was the first. Chicken corn chili. Pork roast with potatoes and carrots, cabbage beef soup (a HUGE hit with Riley in particular), chicken and dumplings, and cheesy italian tortellini. I'm sure there's more, but that's what I remember.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have to leave for school at 4:30, but only get home around 4 from picking the kids up from school. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Riley has swimming lessons at 6:15, so she needs to eat by 5pm sharp, again after getting home at 4. The crock pot helps a ton in getting everyone food at a precise time. Additionally, since the crock pot I got in 6qts, if I only fill it half-way or less, it doesn't take as long to cook. So, I can go grocery shopping after dropping the kids off at school, and still get everything prepped and cooked by dinner time.

The only downside to the crock pot is that Avery loves helping to cook, and if she helps she is much more likely to eat the food. With the crock pot, I prep it while the girls eat breakfast. If she does get to help, she finds it rather anti-climactic since we just fill the pot and wait 8 hours LOL! Oh well, can't win them all!

I think Riley has lost the passion for skating. On the morning of her second lesson, she wanted me to "unsign" her. Rather than putting her in Basic 2, I put her in Snowplow 2 with Caoimhe, which seemed to lift her spirits quite a bit. I don't give a flying turd if she's already been in Snowplow 2, as long as she has fun!

Riley passed Level 2 in swimming. She really likes swimming more than skating right now. I still have a credit with the rec center for Avery's dropped classes, so hopefully we can fit in one more session before moving. Swimming lessons are considerably more important to me since Portland is 60% water! And a lot of rentals that we're looking at in Maine are ON the water, so I see swimming as very important!

I am going to see if I can score a used pair of rollerblades for Riley and see if that satisfies her need for speed. It seems that a lot of the kids here are moving from bikes to rollerblades, and skating around the neighborhood is a lot better than driving so darn far for skating twice a week! Plus, I won't have to deal with the coldness in the summer. That ticks me off.

I took Riley and Avery to school with me on Wednesday because the public library is closed for 2 whole weeks (!!!) and Rudi normally takes them to story time on Wednesday nights. So, for a special end-of-the-semester treat, I brought them with me. They both did me proud and sat through over 3 hours of college history. My teachers were quite impressed with them, as were my classmates.

I have a conference at school for Riley next Tuesday. Today, while I was dropping off Riley, Rae asked Riley is she wanted to show me her multiplication. I was like, WHAT? Multiplication? Sure enough she did 6's and 7's while I was there. I think Rae wanted to demonstrate the curriculum for a pair of visiting parents of a prospective student. The mother stopped me in the parking lot and asked me about the school, and I was like yeah, we love it, it's Riley's fourth year here! The funny thing is that two of the parents of current students went to school at Golden Mountain! How amazing is that that parents from two separate families had such positive experiences in preschool and kindergarten that they think to bring there own children there after all those years? And to find that the same director is there? Pretty cool in my book!

Avery read me her first BOB book the other day. She was super-proud of herself, and of course I was proud of her too! Riley is out of the kindergarten curriculum for reading and is about half-way through the first grade curriculum. That girl loves to read!

Riley and Avery had their physicals yesterday. Riley is in the 25th percentile for height, and 40th percentile for weight. Avery is in the 5th percentile for both height and weight. They both checked out well! The doctor remarked that Avery has a funny way of talking, meaning her over-the-top expressiveness. Talking is definitely her strong point!

I did ask the doctor about Riley's frequent high fevers, and he checked her tonsils and didn't notice anything strange, and then he checked her urethra for signs of a UTI, which was also fine. But when the doctor pulled down Riley's pants, Avery said "THAT is NOT going to happen to ME!...is it, Mom?" Hope she stays that way! The doc gave us a cup for a urine sample to check for bladder infection, and Riley was MORTIFIED that she was being asked to pee in a cup! She couldn't do it, but surprised me at home my appearing with a warm cup of urine.

So, the doctor just suggested that we bring her in when she is actually having a fever. And wouldn't you know it, Riley gets a fever at 3:30 on a FRIDAY! Hopefully, if it is a bladder infection, it'll show up on a Thursday urine sample. If it's not a bladder infection, then we're out of luck until next time! Needless to say, Riley will be missing skating lessons tomorrow, as well as the Hummingbird festival she wanted to go to really badly. Poor kiddo!

My sewing machine needs to be serviced, as in it's not working. The tension is SO messed up! I know that I need a new bobbin case, which I ordered online and hopefully it will be here soon, but I think that's only part of he problem. It's really hard to find a reputable sew-vac shop! The first one I went to was run by a couple from Coney Island (my Brooklyn neighbor was like, you should have run away from there LOL!) and they sold me the wrong part and were just total scam artists. Reading reviews of their business is not comforting at all. Apparently they are not only con artists, but violent ones. Not going anywhere near there! The other place I went to, the cold elderly lady who apparently owns the place didn't listen to a single thing I said was wrong with the machine (namely, birdnesting under the fabric) and instead wrote "clean and tune" on the ticket, then proceeded to charge me for bobbin thread and top thread. Whatever.

So, I went to the quilt shop right up the street and asked them if they could recommend anyone, since they only service Viking machines. They gave me the number to a dude that comes to the house. Sound nice...and expensive. Anyway, the quilt shop gave me a rental machine for three days free, since I'm such a frequent customer. It's a computerized Viking machine from 1998, that still, after all these years, retails for over $400. It retailed for about $1300 in 1998, which is considerably more than the car I was driving at that time LOL! Nothing against the machine, but I couldn't get into the rhythm of it. I like MY machine. Using another machine is like wearing someone else's shoes. I could run my sewing machine with a blindfold on!

UPDATE: bobbin case came in the mail and it solves most of the urgent issues. Tension is still not ideal, but I'll look online and see if I can figure out how to adjust the tension internally myself. The external dial just doesn't adjust it enough. It's still usable, though!!

And that's it for my uber-boring sewing machine post!

I will post pictures and text later.